Bush: "Miserable failure" or "bitter disappointment"?

Google gives the president a pass. Dick Armey doesn't.

Published February 5, 2007 6:07PM (EST)

George W. Bush may no longer be a "miserable failure" -- Google has tweaked its "analysis of the link structure of the Web" so that those words don't lead to a bio of the president anymore -- but that doesn't mean he's not a "bitter disappointment."

Just ask Dick Armey. Asked whether he thinks Bush is a "failed president," the former Republican House majority leader tells McClatchy Newspapers: "I've said over the years that every president either ends up a pleasant surprise or a bitter disappointment. And we haven't had a pleasant surprise since Ronald Reagan. I don't see how anybody can look at the Bush presidency and say this was a success in public policy terms."

Other nuggets from the interview: Armey calls Tom DeLay "sneaky" and "conniving" and says he never should have held public office; Armey says that John McCain "may be turning up as old news" in the race for the Republican presidential nomination and that it's "not going to be hard to catch him"; and Armey admits to some regrets about voting to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq. "Had I been more true to myself and the principles I believed in at the time, I would have openly opposed the whole adventure vocally and aggressively," Armey says. "I had a tough time reconciling doing that against the duties of majority leader in the House. I would have served myself and my party and my country better, though, had I done so."


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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